


Restlessness and Rest

by CateWolfe



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, The Years of the Trees, The land beyond the Pélori, Valinor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:47:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26208940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CateWolfe/pseuds/CateWolfe
Summary: Before the next bright Mingling had faded entirely away, the two arrived at the last tall hill, slowing to a halt at its peak. The foothills of the Pélori spread to their right and left, growing slowly into true mountains. Behind them the plains were bathed in gold and silver light, but all the land that spread below them lay in darkness.It was exactly where she needed to go.Nerdanel's journey beyond the light of the Trees, and what she finds there.Written for lost-in-tolkiens-universe, for TRSB2020. (DeviantArt is being tricky; please check the beginning notes for a link to the inspiration art piece.)
Relationships: Nerdanel & Original Animal Character(s), Nerdanel & Original Maia Character(s)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 6
Collections: Tolkien Reverse Summer Bang 2020





	Restlessness and Rest

**Author's Note:**

> Until I manage to get Ao3 hyperlinks to work, please copy-paste this link into your search bar to find the lovely artwork that inspired this fic: https://www.deviantart.com/lostinfantasyworlds/art/Nerdanel-adventuring-853427193

The wind blew far more strongly on these plains than it had in the forests surrounding Tirion.

Nerdanel supposed this was not unexpected. There were very few trees out on the most distant eastern plains, so the wind had more room to stretch and grow. It was said that the Maiar of Manwë came here at times, to revel in the broad skies, but at the moment Nerdanel could see none.

From atop her horse Sornarocco, the wind felt much stronger than it truly was. They had been galloping into it for the past few reckless moments, almost lost in a great sea of grasses and flowers, but for the landmark of Laurelin and Telperion at their backs. 

At the highest point of one particularly tall hill she brought Sornarocco to a halt. They had journeyed far enough from the Trees that, even in the very midst of summer, the air grew increasingly chill. The scattered flowers seemed smaller than they had been at the western edge of the plains, and the colors of all plants seemed paler and more drawn.

The cold was not terribly uncomfortable at this distance from the Trees, but as she journeyed the slow growth of coldness had become far swifter. After another few hours of riding, she calculated, the cold would be impossible to ignore. She was not as weary as she might have been, but this was, most likely, the last opportunity she would have to rest well without a fire.

She dismounted. The hill would do well enough for a resting place. In Valinor there were no enemies as there had been in Father’s stories of the lands across the sea, so she had no need for subtlety. Animals, though, would always need to eat, so a good view of the surroundings would help her keep some uncommonly bold creature from making off with her provisions.

Sornarocco was clever enough, usually, that Nerdanel did not need to tie him up, only telling him to stay near her as she removed his saddle and tack. Swiftly she wiped it down with an old rag, cleaned Sornarocco’s coat with her traveling brush, and put both rag and brush away. 

She turned now to the business of making a little camp for herself. At the tallest point of the hill she set down her pack and firewood bundle, pulled out her thin bedroll, and laid it down on the flattest piece of ground she could find. She was not extremely hungry, so only pulled out a handful of nuts and dried berries from one of her pack’s outer pockets to eat as she sat.

At this point there was really nothing left for Nerdanel to do, and although her body was content to sit and eat, her spirit still yearned for activity. When the traveling mood took her she could never truly enjoy resting for its own sake.

She chewed on an exceptionally shrivelled blueberry and thought about all the unfinished projects sitting in her family’s workshop. Hopefully this journey would replenish her stores of patience, at least long enough to really do justice to one idea: to form it, to find every flaw, to make it into the best possible version of itself, and at last to bring it into reality. Her current mood always made her eager to skip to the end— and to never reach a good end at all, because she had not kept the ideas in her head long enough to find the holes in them, and all her scattered beginnings were so flawed that they were almost not worth finishing.

To not finish them, however, would be a sad waste of good stone. This journey would have to be a long one— Nerdanel would need to save up enough patience to salvage every false start she had left behind into something that was at least a little pleasant to look at.

Even _thinking_ about how much work awaited her at home made her head sore, and yet she could think of nothing else while she remained awake. “To dreams, then,” she said aloud, drowning out the thoughts that whirled unvoiced in her head. She gulped down the last of her handful of food, checked on Sornarocco one last time, and lay down on her bedroll, resolving to dream only of pleasant things until Laurelin waxed.

Laurelin seemed to grow bright far earlier than Nerdanel had expected. Probably she had been more weary than she knew, and had slipped into dreams more quickly than she had expected, although she could remember nothing of them.

Already Sornarocco had awoken, and had wandered some distance from the camp in pursuit of a particularly juicy clump of grass.

Nerdanel did not call him back quite yet. She shook the grass from her bedroll, and rolled it back up to attach it to her pack. The firewood bundle she also rolled up again. Its edges were damp with dew from the surrounding grass, but would dry long before she had need of a fire. Although she knew she had left nothing else out of her pack while resting, she quickly glanced over the entire hilltop, in case she was mistaken. Today she was not; she shouldered her pack, gathered up Sornarocco’s tack, and called him over. She readied him for the next leg of their journey with practiced hands, whistling a simple, rhythmic smithy tune. Up into the saddle she climbed, and they set off walking eastward.

Along the way Nerdanel spied a little hollow between two hills, blocked by the hills from much of the light of the Trees. The strange, pale grasses that grew within the hollow looked to be cousins of the bright flowers that grew all around, but having grown to adulthood in the darkness all aspects of their being had been altered by it. At first glance their pale, thin stalks nearly drove Nerdanel to pity, but as she looked more closely she began to think that they possessed a kind of austere grace, reaching ever toward the light with all their strength.

In the midst of her musings, she had pulled Sornarocco to a stop without knowing. Nerdanel shut her eyes tightly and shook her head. She could afford to waste no time dallying between her present location and her destination— she only carried so much firewood, and although she had heard there were some forests in the shadow of the eastern hills, there was no good reason for her to waste firewood on more fires than were absolutely necessary.

She dismounted, and turned to face the east, Laurelin’s light glowing warm on the back of her head. The time spent in rest had done her much good, and now every inch of her limbs buzzed with the need to _move._

“Run with me,” she murmured, and she set off running toward the most distant hill. Sornarocco overtook her easily, but turned in a wide circle to rejoin her, and slowed his pace so they could run together. Over the hills and through the hollows they ran, leaving the faintest of trails through the tall green grass. Neither wearied, nor would they grow weary before Laurelin waned, for both of their hearts were full to bursting of the joy of life, and their heads were giddy with adventure.

Before the next bright Mingling had faded entirely away, the two arrived at the last tall hill, slowing to a halt at its peak. The foothills of the Pélori spread to their right and left, growing slowly into true mountains. Behind them the plains were bathed in gold and silver light, but all the land that spread below them lay in darkness, the plants and animals surviving upon what little light chanced to reflect upon them from a tall stone or tree. Still this was enough light that the grass and trees grew green, not sundered completely from their kin on the other side of the hill.

Some distance away there was a forest. The ground around the trees was strangely bare, and the trees themselves grew tall and spare before blooming into a sphere of leaves at their tips, where they could gather the light. The air within the forest was darker still than the air outside it, and Nerdanel could not see what lay inside.

It was exactly where she needed to go.

Before she could think too deeply about what dangers might lie within the forest, or feel too deeply the growing cold, she leapt into Sornarocco's saddle and urged him forward. Down the gentle slope he galloped and across the shaded meadow. They entered the forest, and the darkness between the trees enveloped them.

At first Nerdanel could see nothing in the faint light, but as the moments passed she could see more and more. In time the forest looked to her almost as it might have under the full light of the Mingling. Colors only were lacking, everything appearing in various shades of dull bluish grey. She might have attributed this to the actual colors of the dirt and trees, but even Sornarocco’s bright mane had been sapped of all its color, and the embroidery on the saddle did not look golden at all.

The trees were taller up close, and larger, one impressive specimen being in possession of a trunk thrice as wide as Nerdanel was. The bark was oddly smooth, and the trunk bore no low branches for firewood, save a few withered twigs scattered across each tree’s surface. Nerdanel craned her neck until it was sore, looking up at the way the leaves of each treetop moved in the wind. One leaf twisted at just such an angle as to reflect a flash of light into her eye; she flinched, and looked back at the strange, pale forest around her, moving steadily eastwards.

The rare glimpses of light from above grew rarer still as she rode, and the growing cold grew to a degree that Nerdanel had never before felt. Her bones began to ache, and as she moved her hand to steady her pack she realized that her fingers had grown very stiff.

It was time to rest. She had used none of her firewood on the journey thus far, so although there was no wood about to replenish her stock she could afford to make a small fire.

Nerdanel dismounted and took down her firewood bundle from behind her pack. It had been wrapped in an oiled cloth to keep out the damp, and it held enough wood for her to make three rests’ worth of fire, if she was careful. The bundle’s edges had quite dried in Laurelin’s light, just as she had expected.

Her pack she pulled down afterward, for it held her fire-starting tools, as well as a little pouch of wood shavings and bits of wool or feathers, which would catch alight much more quickly than the large branches that made up the bulk of her firewood.

She knelt down on the smooth dirt. Quickly she swiped the dust away, and quickly she arranged the wood, nestling a little pile of kindling in the center. After this she brought her fire-starter close to the kindling and sent a dozen broad showers of sparks down onto it, waiting patiently for one of them to catch the kindling alight.

Just as she began to wonder if the kindling had somehow gotten wet, a small flame rose from its edge. She fed it small twigs and sticks, and soon the larger pieces of wood took up the flame, the initial spark growing into a slow little blaze that would, if she was careful, last until she was fully rested.

Nerdanel stretched and flexed her fingers, two of the joints on her left hand popping from the cold. She had not allowed herself to realize how deeply cold she was while building the fire, and now despite the fire she shivered from the cold that still remained in her bones. She had not remembered to bring a coat, wise though it would have been.

She made camp, arranging everything around the campfire, and took care of Sornarocco. She scratched an arrow in the dirt, showing the way she had been facing when she arrived at the site, so that she could find her way in the morning. Last of all she sat down heavily on her bedroll, wearier than she had been for a very long time.

The fire blazed up, having hit a particularly dry pocket of one of the larger branches, then died back down. Even the dimmest firelight shocked Nerdanel’s eyes now. It was strange how quickly she had grown used to the dark— or perhaps not that strange, given that the first elves had awoken under starlight, and really elves had lived in the dark for longer than they had lived in the light of the Trees.

Still, just as the light of the Trees made all that had come before seem unthinkably dark, the firelight cast everything beyond its reach into deep, ominous shadow. Nerdanel shifted her bedroll a little closer to its glowing coals.

Looking out into the darkness to her right, she thought she could see something moving. But as she focused on where she thought she had seen it, she could see nothing but stillness.

She would try not to think about it. It seemed to be a theme in her life lately, trying not to think about things. But at least, she thought, yawning, at the moment she was weary enough that the choice of what to think about would soon be a matter for her dreams.

When Nerdanel awoke, she could see.

The fire had died while she rested, so her eyes could more easily use the subtle light seeping in through the top of the forest. She did not see the deep darkness any more, only the great forest of smooth trees, which looked much the same in every direction.

Nothing moved, aside from herself and Sornarocco. Even their tracks from the day before looked completely undisturbed for as far as she could see them, and she could see no tracks from any other living being.

She could hear nothing either, save for the rustling of the leaves above and her own heartbeat below. No birds, no rabbits, no squirrels.

Quickly she ate, then packed up camp, saving a few pieces of charcoal from her fire that looked as though they would be useful. She readied Sornarocco, then climbed into the saddle, and the two set off, in the direction marked by Nerdanel’s arrow from before she had rested.

Every new part of the forest looked as though it was identical to the last. It might have been peaceful if it had not been so disconcerting. With every new turn she seemed to feel eyes upon her back, and yet no matter how quickly she turned her head around she could see nothing but Sornarocco’s tracks and the endless grey, whispering trees.

Nerdanel had no way of knowing how much time she had spent traveling before stopping for what felt like it should be a midday meal. The leaves of the trees above her grew so thickly now that she could not guess anything from brief glimpses of silver or golden light. What little light filtered down to the forest floor seemed colorless, changeless. There was no wind at all.

Nevertheless she ate, and drank a little water as well. One of the trees near her had slightly different bark than the others, and its trunk was covered in several little twigs, which were trying valiantly to grow leaves. Sornarocco ate some of these, and then they carried on.

They passed by a ring of mushrooms, but they were the brilliant red kind that offered more anguish than nourishment. Nerdanel rode on.

Then they heard a crashing noise from above, and saw a flash of silver light. A bird had fallen through the canopy. It regained its bearings before hitting the ground, and darted swiftly out of the forest again. Some few branches and leaves had fallen from the trees. Nerdanel went to gather the branches for future use as firewood, while Sornarocco ate the leaves.

But nothing else of note happened before they stopped for the second long rest within the forest, in a place that looked much the same as where they had stopped the last time. Before doing anything else Nerdanel scratched an arrow in the dirt, of much the same design of the one she had added to the last camp. The next order of business was to take off Sornarocco’s tack, but brushing him would have to wait until after she had built a fire.

Nerdanel did not use the new wood from within the forest, for it was not yet dry enough to catch quickly alight. Instead she carefully arranged the wood she had brought into the forest, using the dry leaves she had cleared away from the dirt as kindling. She had been careful, this time, to stop before she was too weary to properly make camp, so her fingers were better able to wield her flint and steel. This time she had a proper fire in half the time her last attempt had taken.

The fire built, she cleaned Sornarocco, and cleaned his tack. In the low light the saddle almost looked new again, wrinkles and cracks from when she was younger and had not cared for it properly hidden from her view. Even the metal clasps and buckles looked to be in far less need of a good polishing.

Then she let him loose to wander in search of what food he could find, and ate her own food. Although it was much the same stuff as she had eaten at every stage of her journey, its taste had grown much more vibrant when contrasted with her strange surroundings. Each walnut’s dry bitterness was slightly different than the next’s, and a single dried cherry overwhelmed her senses as much as a full bucket of fresh cherries might have at home. Even in her water she could taste the minerals peculiar to the last well from which she had filled her sturdy canteen, simultaneously sweet and a little salty.

When she had finished eating, she laid down on her bedroll and did her best to rest. The fire would, if all went well, last longer this time. She knew now that there was no wind in this forest, and had thus been able to stack the wood for the fire with an eye only for longevity. Even though it burnt more swiftly than ordinary wood, she had added a few of the charcoal pieces as well, to conserve her firewood. This fire would produce some charcoal as well, so really she could use each large piece of wood twice.

Lying on her bedroll and looking out at the trees, Nerdanel began to see the slight differences between them. One of them had a trunk with a slight waver, bending first to the left and then to the right. Another stood perfectly upright, but had a deep oval scar on its side where a large bough had grown, then fallen off. The place where the bough had been was empty. Perhaps elves had once lived near enough to this area of the forest to be able to tend it, and had carried away the bough for their own purposes. More likely, however, was the possibility that the bough had simply crumbled with age, and become part of the grey dust that blanketed the forest floor beneath the newest leaves.

For some time she lay there thinking of the trees, and counting the differences between them. And when she slipped away into dreams of more verdant forests, she hardly noticed.

Nerdanel awoke to the most profound cold she had ever felt in her life.

The fire still burned, and she hurried to crouch beside it, desperately trying to warm her fingers and toes. Sornarocco had returned, and also stood beside the fire.

As soon as her fingers had warmed enough to move, she got to work packing up camp. Moving kept her warm, especially now that she was no longer laying on the cold ground, and perhaps if they moved to a different region of the woods the temperature there would be more hospitable.

Nerdanel had grown very adept at packing up camp, and though she could not be certain of the time she felt as though this was her swiftest attempt yet. She could have put Sornarocco’s tack back on much more quickly than usual as well, but since it was a bit more important than the exact way she folded her bedroll she decided not to risk doing anything amiss, and put it all on at her usual speed.

They set off. She made a valiant attempt at recognizing the differences between trees, but this grew much more difficult as they moved, and eventually she decided that the pain from perpetually squinting her eyes was not worth the complete lack of any reward. On occasion she craned her neck upwards, looking for any hint of light from above, but this search too was futile. So she let her mind wander as if in a dream of her own making, thinking of whatsoever it wanted.

There had been more charcoal from this fire than from the last. Of course she was grateful, and had packed it all up safely with her other supplies, but she wondered which difference had caused it. Had the shape of the fire been more conducive to charcoal formation? Had the subtle shape of the land shielded the fire from even the slightest breeze? Had the wood she used this time simply been better suited to form into charcoal?

She spent what seemed like a very long time in this kind of hazy nothingness of thought, drifting slowly from one topic to another. There were no birds today, but there were a few mushrooms of a type that Nerdanel did not recognize. Their caps were a pale greenish white, but their stems, rooted in the long trunk of a fallen tree, were black, spotted with vibrant rings of white and green. Contrasted so starkly against the surrounding drab darkness, the mushrooms almost seemed to glow.

They traveled on, leaving behind the mushrooms, but Nerdanel continued to think of them. She knew it was possible for a tree to emit light, because of course the Trees did, but _could_ a mushroom glow? Perhaps only the types of growing things that had been devised by Yavanna and her Maiar could glow. She could not remember whether mushrooms were something that had come about in Arda as a result of something Melkor or his followers had done, but it seemed likely. There would, she thought, have been no need for things which fed on death to grow in an unmarred world.

She continued traveling, deep in thought. Her thoughts slowly drifted away from mushrooms, but before she could decide what to think about next she was shocked back into reality by a sudden change in the sound of Sornarocco’s hoofbeats. The ground beneath the two of them no no longer sounded dry and dusty, and he no longer crushed dried leaves with every step; his hoofbeats now squelched. They were moving through mud now.

Mud meant water, and Nerdanel needed water. Her canteen had not yet grown dangerously light, but it would within three more of these stretches of travel. She hoped that the source of the water would be a nearby lake or river, or better yet a spring. If she had to dig for the water she would gladly do it, but now that she was thinking about water she noticed the sound of it flowing very close by, a short distance to her left.

Nerdanel examined the ground in the same direction as the sound of water, and found a stream in the middle, about as broad across as the length of her arm. To follow the stream upstream would have been to continue in the same direction as before, so her decision was easy. She would search for the source of the stream, and refill her canteen there. If the stream’s source was farther away than she could reach before her current water supply ran dry, she would brave the water of the stream itself. It would be safe enough, she reasoned, for she had not seen any creature living in the forest that could have sullied the water.

They traveled for some time alongside the stream. Its sound was a welcome respite from the long silence. A few pale little plants grew alongside its banks, which were interesting to look at. Some of them looked a bit like ferns, while others resembled the tall grasses from outside the forest. All of them looked gaunt and drawn, their leaves thin and frail. Nerdanel wondered how they had even been able to sprout. Water was one necessary element, yes, but plants such as these needed light and warmth to activate their seeds.

In time her shoulders grew weary, and she and Sornarocco drew to a halt to rest. She slipped off of the saddle, and turned to retrieve her pack—

Spread out in front of her was a view of much of the stream. She could see Sornarocco’s hoofprints in the mud, stretching out as far as her view of the stream itself did before it was blocked by a cluster of trees.

She would not ordinarily have been able to see so far. There would not ordinarily have been enough light. But there was, because the hoofprints were glowing a brilliant pale blue.

Over to the stream’s banks she rushed, her pack forgotten. The blue seemed to be coming from the bottom of each print, pooling like water in its deepest point. It felt, as she hovered one hand over it, the slightest bit warm.

While drawing near to the light Nerdanel had accidentally stepped in the mud. Quickly she withdrew her foot, and watched in wonder as this new footprint filled with light as well. She knelt down beside the mud, and deliberately swiped one finger through the mud. The shallow mark also filled with light, but it took longer to do so than her footprint had. As she carefully peered at the mud, she could see faint pulses of light from beneath the mud, and in the walls of the stream.

This strange light in the mud must have been what allowed the seeds alongside the stream’s banks to sprout. It would have provided enough light to make the seeds think that spring had come, but was either too faint or too volatile to truly sustain their life.

Nerdanel had to leave the mud to make camp, but as soon as she had finished arranging everything she took her food and went to eat it by the stream. To look at the glowing mud made her think that the mushrooms from earlier might have really been glowing after all.

She did not want to return to her camp, and she did not want to waste any time resting. But as she watched the light fade from even her own footprint she blinked, and the pain that shot through her eyes left her no choice but to return to camp and close them, and despite herself she swiftly fell asleep.

Finding this curious river had very much renewed Nerdanel’s desire to travel deeper into the woods. It was exactly the sort of thing she had needed to see. She packed up camp even more quickly than she had laid it out, then called back Sornarocco, and the two of them set off at a brisk pace along the stream, leaving a trail of glimmering hoofprints behind them.

As they traveled the light seemed to grow brighter, and it was not only blue. From far ahead Nerdanel could see a great source of golden light, and the path along the stream would lead them straight to it.

With every step they grew closer to the mysterious light. The forest seemed to grow as warm as any of the forests surrounding Tirion, and the ground was carpeted with green, real grass.

At last they drew close enough that Nerdanel could see the light clearly. The stream passed through a ring of trees, inside of which there was a treeless glade. Here the ground did not need to be disturbed to shine, glowing through the grass in vibrant blue, silver, and gold.

But Nerdanel hardly looked at the ground. Her eyes were fixed straight ahead.

In the center of the glade rose a little rocky hill, and at the top of the hill bubbled a little hot spring, sending up great plumes of steam into the starry sky. The water flowed down the sides in four distinct trickles, pooling in a ring-shaped ditch around the base of the hill. From this, on the side facing Nerdanel, flowed the stream she had been following all this way.

All around the water, as far as her eye could see, there were flowers. Creeping vines twined around the rocky hill, the petals of their shining golden flowers falling into the stream and being swept into the ring. Radiant blue and silver water lilies bobbed on the stream’s surface. A cobblestone path through the clearing was lined with relatively short flowers, all in gold or silver, but the light-veined stalks of the flowers farther away from the path grew so tall that Nerdanel could not have touched their shining blooms, each at least the size of a dinner plate, if she had jumped as high as she possibly could.

Without even noticing she had gotten out of Sornarocco’s saddle, and the two wandered down the stone path, looking at everything.

“Do you like it?” said a voice from behind them.

Nerdanel did jump as high as she possibly could at that, and while she was in the air turned her head to see who had spoken.

The speaker seemed to be an elf. He was fairly scrawny, and not exceptionally tall. His long, dark hair had been tied away from his face with a bit of twine.

“This is the Calatarwa,” he said. “I am its keeper, and a Maia of Varda.” He paused, then continued, sounding almost hopeful. “I heard, a little while ago, that the Noldor had come up with a word for those who tend a garden. Is that true?”

“Yes,” said Nerdanel, stepping slowly backwards. “We would call you a gardener.”

“Gardener,” he said. “I like the sound of that.” He turned back to the flowers, shaping their stems and arranging their petals meticulously. “There are fruit trees somewhere in here,” he said, “and much grass for your horse, if you would like to rest before continuing on your journey. Do not drink the water from this spring, for it is hot enough to burn. There are smaller, colder springs throughout the garden which are quite safe, and taste better besides.”

“Thank you,” said Nerdanel, her mouth already watering at the prospect of eating glowing fruit. It was said that the king of the Vanyar had been given a sapling of Laurelin, and that he served its fruit at the high feasts, but an ordinary elf like her could never hope to be invited to one of those. One question yet bothered her, though, and she had to ask it. “But if I may ask, how did a Maia of Varda come to tend plants and not stars?”

He sat silently for a moment before answering. “I arrived,” he said, “too late to aid with the Trees. But I love their light above all others, and none other is still working with such luminescent plants. So I work here, making what I think might be beautiful.

“Of course other Maiar have helped! Several of the Maiar of Yavanna aided with the early stages, and a Maia of Aulë had to work with a Maia of Ulmo to get that working—” he waved one hand at the hot spring— “but they have all gone away to new works.”

Nerdanel nodded. She had more questions, but they could wait until after she had eaten. Some distance away from the hot spring she found a cooler spring, and on either side of that a broad swath of green grass and a little stand of fruit trees.

She took care of Sornarocco, and set him loose for a good meal. For herself she went over to the fruit trees, and picked a golden one that looked something like a pear.

It tasted much like a pear as well. But its texture was smoother, without the ordinary pear's grittiness that sometimes stuck in one’s teeth. Although it did not exactly _taste_ better than an ordinary fruit, it was warm in a way that would never be too warm, feeling as though it glowed even in her stomach.

The warmth made her realize just how weary she was. The gardener’s surprising her earlier had quite shaken her after a long time of hearing no voice but her own.

The grass was so soft that Nerdanel did not even bother with her bedroll, only lying down beneath the shining trees, and drifting off into dreams surrounded by warm golden light.

When Nerdanel awoke she plucked another of the glowing fruits to eat, and wandered through more of the gardens. The gardener was not in the intricately-planned central ring, instead tending to the flowers in a broad expanse of square flowerbeds. Each square looked to be full of one certain type of flower. Perhaps this was where he kept flowers until they were needed for the central ring.

Nearly all the flowers were silver, gold, or blue. But one square on the edge, where the gardener was working, glowed a brilliant orange-red.

As she drew closer she saw that each of a given set of plants bore the slightest of differences from the one next to it, as if they were all first drafts of each other. Yet none was elevated above any other. Perhaps the final flowers were located elsewhere. “Where are the finished works?” she asked.

“All of them are finished,” replied the gardener. “Or perhaps none of them are, for I am ever designing more. If ever the people of Valinor want one for their own gardens, I think they will like having choices; one shape of leaf will look very well mixed in with a bed of ferns, or a small, short flower may be just what is needed to plant along the edges of a display of larger flowers.”

They fell silent for a time, the gardener continuing to tend to his plants, and Nerdanel wandering up and down every path, making mental notes of every plant or flower she liked well enough to try to sculpt later. 

“You may take one home if you like,” said the gardener. “When you decide to return. You seem the sort of person who will care for it.”

“Home!” said Nerdanel. “Yes, I will have to begin the journey back soon. I promised that I would be back before twenty changings of the lights had passed. The journey to the forest took three changings, and I have only rested in the forest four times, so I suppose I have several more changings left until I must leave. Can you tell from within here when the Trees are changing?”

“I can,” said the gardener. “And moreover I know when anything living enters this forest. You have already been here for twenty changings of the lights.”

 _“Twenty!”_ exclaimed Nerdanel. “Then I must leave at once. I only hope I can return in time to keep them from sending out searchers.”

“Do not hasten over much,” said the gardener. “The return journey may not take as long.”

“Do you know a shortcut?” asked Nerdanel, as she darted around the garden gathering her things.

“There are none,” said the gardener quietly, “at least not to your destination. But I remain a Maia of Varda, and this is my domain. If you wish to return home swiftly, I think you will not find the journey back to be as long as the journey here.”

Despite the gardener’s words, Nerdanel insisted on leaving the Calatarwa as soon as she could. She did take one of the plants after all, a little thing that the gardener promised would grow to cover even the largest of trellises. She and Sornarocco had no need of rest on her journey back to the pass through the Pélori. And although her parents fussed at her tardiness when she arrived home, they were not nearly as worried as they would have been had she taken longer, and had mostly moved on to other topics of conversation by the time of Laurelin’s next waning.

Once she was thoroughly well rested, she entered her corner of the workshop to survey what she had to work with. One particularly ambitious project she had sculpted from a triangular chunk of scrap marble into the shape of a hillside, covered in dozens of little elves, each one different from the next.

One single elf was not finished, or indeed even begun, left still as an unshapen outcropping beside the lily-covered river at the hills base. The outcropping still bore faint charcoal markings from an attempt at sketching a fisherman, but she had known that this was not what it was meant to be.

But now, Nerdanel thought, she had some ideas.

**Author's Note:**

> Sornarocco should mean "steady or steadfast horse" in Quenya, and Calatarwa should mean "light garden" in Quenya. If anyone has any suggestions as to how I could make these names more grammatically valid, please let me know in the comments! 
> 
> Most specific fantastical plants mentioned are based on specific phenomena I have personally observed, but others are completely made up.
> 
> Did I write a fic in which a main theme is time without using any real-world units of time measurement, including the day? I sure tried to. I do not plan to do it again.
> 
> It was intentional that the Maia and Nerdanel never learn each other's names. I actually headcanon that he shows up to all her major life events with a new flower, and at no point do they _ever_ remember to introduce themselves, nor do they hear anybody else use the other's name and figure it out from there.


End file.
